February 12, 2004

Sushi...

So, Jodi and Ann came up with the idea that instead of going out for lunch, that it would be a blast to go out for dinner to catch up. (For those of you playing the home game, Ann no longer works at Wizmo)
It was decided that we'd go to "Origami":http://www.origamirestaurant.com, Ann's favorite sushi restaurant in the Twin Cities. We ended up going to their new "Origami West" in the Ridgedale Mall. We arrived and immediately you could tell this was a sushi place, you could see the sushi bar, the ultra-modern interior.
Upon being seated, Ann polled the table to see who was "in" for sushi. Jodi was unable to have sushi, Jason didn't want to try it, so Jim, Ann and myself went in on it together. Ann recognized one of the chefs, explained she had, "One rookie, one not-so-rookie and herself," knowing that the sushi chef already knew her likes and dislikes.
Denver, our waiter, took our drink order...Jim started off with some warm _Saki_, Ann and I split a bottle of the _Casa Lapostolle Sauvignon Blanc_ which was a very good choice. Jason ordered his Teriyaki Chicken, Jodi her Mushroom platter, which included portabella, enoki, oyster, straw and black mushrooms, sautÔŅĹed with garlic butter, soy sauce and a splash of sake.
I was a bit unsure if I wanted to go in on the sushi with Ann and Jim. I had sushi before on a business trip. Granted, it was in Provo, Utah, but I was told it was the best place in town. I tried it out there, found it very unappetizing. But, I considered, Ann likes sushi and since this is her favorite place I should give it another try.
While we're waiting for our food, they bring out some _Eda Mame_, otherwise known as boiled young soy beans in the shell, lightly salted. A very good snack while we waited.
Everyone's food arrives. The sushi plate is placed between the three of us, Ann begins to explain the preparation. Poor some soy sauce into the bowl, mix in a bit of wasabi to taste, use it to dip things if you like. The first plate was _sashimi_, in other words, everything was raw, no rice, just the meat nicely arranged with some fresh herbs, lemons, etc as garnish.

I first tried the _Ama Ebi_, or Sweet Shrimp. They were still completely raw, just like everything else on the plate. You pick one up, put it on your _hashi oki_, your "plate" so to speak, and rip the meat from it. Coil it up, pick it up with the chopsticks and eat! It really did live up to its name, a bit sweet on the tongue, nice feel. After you finish, you place the head/body skeleton on the side with the others, and then send it back to get deep fried. (More on that later)

Then Ann suggested I go for the _Maguro_, or Tuna, next. I tried two different types, a _Toro_ which is fatty, comes from the belly of the fish, and _Yellowfin_, which was less fatty, much redder, comes from I seem to remember the back. Both of them were good, I preferred the redder, less fatty variety, but I'd have both again. (Shown here with rice, although ours was just the meat)

After this, Ann suggested moving onto the _Hotate_, or raw scallops. Her serving suggestion was to take one of the lemon garnish and work some of the lemon juice out of it with my chopstick to flavor the scallop. I did, and it was OK. Not my favorite of the plate, in fact, I let the remaider of the scallops be split between Ann and Jim.

Then I tried the _Tai_, or Red Snapper, the _Hirame_, or Halibut, and the _Saba_, or Mackerel. All of them were OK, I was impressed with the variety of mouth feels, tastes, etc. Some of them were fishier than others, but I managed to like each one of them once I got a bit braver about using some of the garnish on my plate to moderate some of the fish taste.

By now, the bottle of wine was gone, so I ordered a glass of the _MacMurray Ranch Pinot Gris_. This was a *VERY* good wine.
Also about this time the deep fried _Ama Ebi_ skeletons came back. Ann convinced me to try mine, even though it still had all of its tentacles, eyes, etc. But, true to what she said, it was just like a potato chip. I even had half of Jim's when he didn't want his.

Once we finished off the first plate, Jim ordered some Spicy Tuna Rolls and Ann ordered a Crunchy Roll. This was a pretty good dish. It consisted of a roll of rice containing shrimp tempura, cucumber, and spicy mayonnaise wrapped in _Masago_, or Smelt Roe. It was pretty good. First time I had Smelt Roe (eggs), they were really sweet in the mouth. Yum.

The night was filled with fun conversation and laughs. I had a great time. Even though I don't think it will start me on the road to sushi lovin', least next time I go I will know what I prefer, so I can enjoy the experience.

October 13, 2004

Order in the Court

Tonight I came home from work and started work on restoring some sense of sanity to the apartment.

I’ve made efforts over the past year or so to unpack from the house, get rid of what I don’t need or want and make some space in here for the things I love.

I spent most of the night picking things up which were already unpacked, although I did manage to make a small dent around the dining room table as well.

A trip to the Hennepin Country Hazardous Waste Center (computer recycler) this weekend should help clear out some space…I’ve got a bunch of old computers that are just sitting in the middle of the floor gathering dust. 486DX/66’s, a Pentium 60…even an old CompuAdd 386/25! The Apple IIgs I had while growing up will stay, along with all the currently used boxen.

Tomorrow night I’ll try to finish off the kitchen and the books.

Getting these three things out of the way first is important - I know I need storage in all three areas, otherwise things will fall back into disrepair rather quickly. The rest of the stuff is assorted junk which will need to find its place - but the first three need to establish their places first.

October 30, 2004

*knock knock* Housekeeping!

Spent most of the day today cleaning and picking up the place.

The highlight/biggest chore of the day was the 3.5 hours of work I performed in the kitchen area. As much as I love this apartment, the kitchen is always been a bother. It’s just simply too small. Coming from the Hudson house with its 650 sq. ft. kitchen the apartment’s 250 sq. ft. kitchen simply doesn’t have enough storage nor counter space to hold all of the kitchen gadgets I’ve accumulated over the years, nor enough counter surface to prepare a meal. Couple this with a dishwasher which rarely gets the dishes clean to my satisfaction and things end up piling up pretty quickly into a mess.

Still got a lot of work to do before November 21st, when I’m holding Thanksgiving here at the apartment. (I’ll have the party room, too, but since none of my family has seen the new pad I think it is only proper that I make this place presentable as well!) Still need to work my way through the clutter which is my living room/dining room area, sort through the 1000’s of photos/other memorabilia which came over in Twinkie from my parents’ house and decorate the blank walls a bit.

October 31, 2004

Lund's Idea of Chicken Kiev

After the movie earlier tonight, I walked next door to Lunds Grocery Store and picked up some food stuffs for dinner. As I was walking by the meat counter, I noticed some prepared Chicken Kiev calling my name. I asked about the preparation requirements, since I knew it was already late and I was hungry. The staff person explained my buttery chicken pleasures were a mere 30 minutes away, so I picked up two.

I got home, prepared some roasted red potatoes and slid them in the oven. A few minutes later I added in the Chicken Kiev. I glanced at the ingredients listed on the label just out of curiosity and noticed cream cheese. “What’s cream cheese doing in Chicken Kiev?” I thought to myself as I set the assorted timers and returned to the laptop.

After 25 minutes, I went back to slide in my thermometer and set the timer. I noticed, along with the usual buttery runoff from the chicken there was this chive-infused cheese oozing out. Thinking they knew something I didn’t I went back to the couch, waiting for the temperature timer to go off.

I have to say, the cream cheese did serve to keep some of the buttery goodness in the chicken longer - but it gave a sour taste to the chicken upon consumption. I would have rather cut up the chicken, dredged it through the buttery spillage and enjoyed the tastes.

November 20, 2004

7 out of 10

Well, I made it through the night last night using only ibuprofen instead of the vicodin I had been using. Still not sleeping well, but I have been managing to keep food down and the rest of my digestive system is slowly working again.

I made the call at noon today that I was gonna go forward with the Durand Family Turkey Day tomorrow, so now I’ve got some catching up to do in that regard. Need to do the grocery shopping I was gonna do on Thursday night, get all the food stuffs, defrost the turkey, prepare the cranberry sauces and roux tonight. Then get to bed early so I can get up, brine the turkey and get everything going tomorrow so I can still make it to the movie in the morning while the turkey is cooking.

Be a hectic afternoon and evening, but I’ll be much happier tomorrow when everyone comes together and we get to celebrate together before we have to split up.

‘course, tomorrow night I’ll be busy packing for the trip, since I leave for that on Monday at 4pm. Seems like the weather will be beautiful down in Texas, can prbly get away with wearing shorts most of the time. (Much to the chagrin of my sister, I suspect, since it’ll be obvious I’m from up north when I’m walking around in shorts in 70 degree weather!)

I totally agree with the article’s point, that these two shows are a refreshing change from the normal “Bam!” showmanship of many of the cooking shows you find on TV. I wouldn’t be so into cooking as I am if it weren’t for finding Good Eats years ago. It explains the “why” of cooking. For example, there was an entire show where Alton made chocolate chip cookies. He started with the Nestle Tollhouse recipe, then explained 4 or 5 different changes you could make to the standard in order to alter the final result of the cookies to your liking. It was a great show, I feel more comfortable in the kitchen when I understand what’s going on in the mixing bowl of mine.

America’s Test Kitchen takes more of a hacker approach to cooking, which I found equally enjoyable, especially after I had a decent exposure to the hard science from Good Eats. In the particular show Davin shared with me, they made 20-some odd different kinds of white rice. They covered all the different types available, used various cooking methods and came up with 4-5 samples that they then used to explain the differences. They take a more qualitative approach than Good Eats, but it is equally as entertaining and interesting.

On French Dressing...

Those of you who have visited a few restaurants with me already know this, but I consider myself a french dressing connoisseur. I’ve tried french dressings of all varieties…the spicy, the rich, the sweet, the thick and the runny.

Of all of the french dressings, my favorite french dressing of all time is the french dressing on Ruby Tuesday’s salad bar.

It has just enough sweetness, with a hint of tartness, to make any salad perfect.

Least, it used to be. Ruby Tuesday’s changed their french dressing about a year ago now to something incredibly yucky. It went from #1 to almost the bottom it was so horrible. The only explanation I received upon asking why they switched was that they wanted to offer a lower-carb variety for people on low-carb diets.

I lamented…why must low carb dieters affect the ability for me to obtain the most wonderful french dressing in the world! Damn them!

I eventually overcame my disappointment…but it certainly decreased the number of visits I made to Ruby Tuesday’s!

Today, the lunch gang decided to go to Ruby Tuesday’s for lunch. I reluctantly ordered the salad bar with my meal, resigned to the fact that I would have to pile on the cheese and ham in order to mask the horrid french dressing.

When I got to dressing buckets, I noticed the terrible french dressing (it looked horrible, too!) had been replaced with something which appeared to be the original favorite of mine! I poured it on the salad, raced back to the table, stabbed at my salad and lifted the fork up to my mouth. As soon as it touched my tongue, I knew they had returned the yummiest french dressing in the world to me!

This, of course, brings the rankings back into alignment. The new top 4 are:

January 23, 2005

Alton and My Chicken

A few weeks ago, I was possessed to go visit Alton Brown’s website. I didn’t really go up there looking for anything in particular…I think I had just finished watching an episode of Good Eats and thought I’d check it out. I noticed an AB on Tour link and clicked through. Low and behold, Alton was coming to Minneapolis to promote his book! I added it to my calendar…and thought I’d forget about it until shortly before.

However, even with the stress of the last two weeks, I’d often find myself looking forward to the book signing. I checked the website a few days later, noticed that an independent bookstore, Bound To Be Read had been added, decided that’s where I’d go.

August 23, 2005

This Just Handed To Me...

Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do Kihn Do

I dove right in and started off with a new food, the “Carolina BBQ Pork Baked Potato”. There’s a food court restaurant at the Mall of America, Col. Muzzy’s Texas BBQ, which does a much better job at this, but it was completely acceptable fair food. Served hot and delicious, it was a great way to start off the consumption. A bit of lemonade, out of one of the refillable “souvenir” bottles washed it all down.

September 4, 2005

2005 State Fair: Visit 2

Delayed by the rain yesterday, I finally made it back to the Minnesota State Fair for my second visit today. Knowing I wouldn’t be returning on the last day, tomorrow, I knew I had to arrive with eyes wide open, and the belt loop one-notch looser, in order to squeeze in all that fair goodness.

September 14, 2005

When 4 Inches Is A Big Deal

I’ve calmed down quite a bit since my last post. The irritation was easy to put out of mind once I got to sleep…how, you might ask? Well, yesterday I spent all day in a meeting with some board members, last night playing trivia at Leaning Tower of Pizza again, this morning on a sales call, this afternoon in meetings, and finally got to do some real work the last hour or so of the day, which hit a milestone in an ongoing project that had stalled with all the distractions of the few days.

After all that, I gave myself the treat of a bike ride and Totino’s Party Pizza for dinner.

There were other happy events over the past few days, too. I had to wear pants for the first time since April 15th or so for the sales call this morning. After going through all the pairs of pants I had, the pair that fit the best was still about 4 inches too big around the waist. Even tho I haven’t seen any drop on the scale most of the summer, at least it means I’ve dropped those inches. Yay!

This is a small kiosk in Ridgedale selling these fleece hats. They are convertible; they cover your face, provide ventilation, etc. Perfect for cold-weather biking when paired with the Beyond Fleece item above.

December 14, 2005

Ketchup

Wow, I’ve only posted 4 times since November 1st. What’s wrong with me? Has my life become that boring?

Yes, in many ways I suppose. Been busy working on a huge project at work…been taking up the vast majority of my time. A few weeks over the past month-and-a-half I’ve been only at home to sleep, shower and dress.

There have been a few highlights of the past few weeks, tho. The project referred to above is quickly coming together, I’m nearly done handing over the project to our operations group, letting me move on to other things. Thanksgiving went wonderfully with everyone together, the turkey turned out perfect, the rest of the food was equally delicious. Continued good luck at Pub Trivia nights, even took a second place after a bitter triple-elimination following a three-way tie for first. Went to the Barenaked Ladies Holiday concert, along with everyone I know…least it seemed that way. Got Gumby/Pokey installed finally this past weekend…which is why you’re seeing a new style here. Still need to tweak it, add the menu back, get the rest of my pages fixed, but it will do for now.

There have been a few lows as well. My Beetle ended up needing to make a visit to the car doctors at Westside VW. The oil pressure light began flashing whenever it was running faster than idle…the cause was a clogged oil pickup tube. A couple hundred for the diagnosis and fix…but I can’t complain too much, only have 2 more payments left, then the car is completely mine. I figure for 2-3 months worth of payments I can restore my good ‘ol Beetle back into a decent shape, ready for another 50k miles or more.

December 15, 2005

Team Boobylicious Cookies!

How can you beat the price, about $4/dozen? I ended up ordering way more than I ever needed, 4 dozen sugar cookies, 4 dozen chocolate chip and 4 dozen peanut blossom cookies. Got them this morning…shared them around the office, most of them are going home with me, some destined to be frozen for an easy holiday party potluck offering, others to be gobbled up over the next few days. They are soooo yummy…